


All's Fair in Love and War

by embarrassingresultofmyfreetime



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Happy Ending, I've spent the last 3 days working on this and im not even sure why, Idk how to tag Ruth!Doctor im sorry, and I was also thinkin about the Master post-The Timeless Children, and this happened, i just really wanted to write something with Ruth!Doctor, im not super content w it but i cant stare at it any longer, please tell me when u think and maybe I'll do something more w it?? Idk, so here, uhhhhh
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-13
Updated: 2020-03-13
Packaged: 2021-02-28 19:20:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23122387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/embarrassingresultofmyfreetime/pseuds/embarrassingresultofmyfreetime
Summary: Having escaped alive and alone, the Master dwells on his failure and uncertainty at what to do next.Purely by accident, he runs into a version of the Doctor he's never met before and she gives him a much needed perspective on their relationship.(Takes place directly after The Timeless Children)
Relationships: The Doctor & The Master (Doctor Who), The Doctor/The Master (Doctor Who), Thirteenth Doctor/The Master (Dhawan)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 104





	All's Fair in Love and War

**Author's Note:**

> PLEASE READ THESE WARNINGS:  
> This is catagorized as T specifically for mentions of death and the Master romanticizing his desire to die at the hands of the Doctor.  
> No one gets hurt or anything but I don't want to upset anyone who is sensative to this subject.  
> Thank you.

The Master has escaped the blast of the Death Particle, if only just. His Tardis had been disguised among the rubble, just close enough for him to escape in but not close enough for his Cybermasters to reach. He supposed if they had one apparent fault, it was agility.

He had leapt into his Tardis and set the dials as soon as possible. To his frustration, the doors slammed shut before any of his creations could reach its safety. The Tardis model recognized its need for self-preservation and locked itself shut the moment it had a pilot on board.

He screamed in anguish and ran for the doors, determined to save at least a handful of his creations- but it was already too late. The doors refused to open, even as his fists cracked against them.

The shockwave of the particle rippled throughout space and time, throwing him off course. As the Tardis's gyroscopic interior became unbalanced, he was thrown back from the doors and across the interior.

The decor of his ship still remained that of his Australian hut and he quickly paid the price for his sentiment. Books crashed down on him, all his work quickly becoming a mess of paper sliding across the floor. He scrambled to piece some of it together as it slid among the rocking ship, its red lights blaring and blasting with warning lights.

Despite all the chaos, he found that he had stopped the action. All his work, every paper and item from the last few hundred years, falling apart around him, and yet he found his eyes locked onto the cover of a now-empty folder.

"I have a whole shelf," he remembered saying, "of things I've collected over the years. A lot of inconsistencies but very, very interesting."

He took the folder of paper and threw it across the room, its contents scattering mid-air.

Lights flashing in bold reds, alarms screaming into his ears, the ship shaking, possibly crashing, and all he could focus on was the failed masterpiece of a plan still scattered around him.

He spared his shelf of information a glance, now empty and falling all around him. It coated the floors now, every scrap amounting to nothing.

When the ship finally stopped, he bolted out the doors.

It was dark, and raining, and he had no idea where he was but it was better than being in his Tardis. It was better than being tortured by the memories of his failures.

It was all crashing down on him now. The fun moments he had spent there with the Doctor, all his scheming as he enacted his grand plan, the most recent time when the Doctor had stolen his Tardis and all the Master could think about when he got it back was the way it still felt like her.

And now his latest and greatest plan. His plan to destroy the Timelords who should have never existed. His plan to eradicate the humans until the Doctor inevitably traced it back to him. His plan to contribute something to the new race of creatures the Doctor had made.

She had been Goddess, giving the scrappy native people the ability to regenerate. Well, two could play at that game. He could give the timelords a cyberman's ability to repair, to fight; and most of all- he gave them a PURPOSE.

His purpose.

And now it was all over.

He had found that the Doctor was above his level, she was older and smarter and bolder than he could ever be. If he couldn't be like her, he would bring her down to his level.

He would have her take her life for his sake. To finally prove that their lives were worth the same.

But she hadn't. He could feel that endless fire consuming him all over again.

She had given it up to that simple-minded human and the Master REFUSED to die against the likes of him.

Maybe the Doctor had always been right, maybe he could never kill himself; but the Doctor could. And the moment she did, the Master's story would have a satisfying conclusion.

That was the only thing he really wanted anymore.

And now he was hiding away in some alleyway in who-knows-when, who-knows-where struggling to understand what to do next.

For the upteenth time, he was alone.

All at once, there was hope. Without warning, he found himself at his feet once more. He felt the Doctor close by, her unique energy radiating out. He felt her, unrestrained and unbridaled.

Could it be her? Could it be one of her past selves?

No matter who it was, the Master realized that maybe it wasn't too late. A past self might be just what he needed. Perhaps he could play the part as O again. He could try to piece together something new, something to level the playing field.

All he wanted was to be the Doctor's equal, and he had all of time and space to figure out how. The cyber wars were in the future: here and now, he could devise something new.

He followed the signature to its source. He dragged his exhausted body up a fire escape just to make it to a nearby rooftop.

He was nearly giddy to feel it again. The Doctor was so close now. His feet made it to the concrete rooftop and he stepped over the lip.

He crossed its surface so he could see over the other side. In all his inner turmoil, he hadn't realized the nightlife happening down a nearby street. Judging from the lamps and the neon lighting, he guessed it was Earth somewhere between the 1970s and 1980s. It briefly occurred to him that he had forgotten to check before leaving his Tardis.

He stepped up onto the edge and looked down over the side. It would be so easy to jump... so, so easy.

But at the most, he would be another regeneration down and at the least, he would be in slightly more pain than usual.

He sighed and slowly closed his eyes. He imagined if he was a human and that this would be his end. A strong breese would be enough to sway him.

No, he decided. It was too... anticlimactic. He deserved and ending worth his journey. He deserved to have his life taken by his only worthy opponent.

He let out a scoff as a sharp pain struck him. The still-open wound of the Doctor squandering his perfectly planned conclusion to both their stories still hurt. That, and a bit of shrapnel had somehow dug its way into his side.

He pulled it out and examined it in the moonlight. Most of it had been caught in the fabric of his clothes, so the wound wasn't as deep as it otherwise would have been.

He chucked it as far as he could into the dark, the rain subsiding.

"Please get down from there, dearest!" Someone called to him. He quickly placed the voice's origin from the rooftop behind him. He had been too distracted by his own mind to hear anyone come up.

"Why?" He scoffed apathetically. He always did like messing with humans. Maybe it could entertain him for a few minutes.

He took a few steps along the half-wall and then did a little spin. He nearly fell but played it off as a joke, chuckling as he paced back the opposite way. His eyes watched his feet all the while.

"Does it make you nervous?" He grinned.

Suddenly an hand reached out and snatched him. It dragged him down from the ledge, its fingers locking into place around his forearm. He stumbled at the sudden drop.

The moment he felt stable, he glared up to see who would dare interfere with his distraction.

To his shock and awe, stood something of a familiar face.

It was... was it the Doctor? She didn't look quite the same and she felt... different.

The Master straightened his back and lifted his chin, looking over her carefully. He tore his arm away from her impossibly strong grip and fixed the lapels of his coat just to give his hands something to do.

"You-" he began with a newfound curiosity. His baffled mind began racing to dozens of different conclusions.

But the stranger was faster, her voice accusatory but not certain, "You're one of them aren't you?!"

In an instant, she buckled his legs out from under him and he fell, collapsing onto his hands and knees. His eyes fixed on the cement below, trying to comprehend what had just happened. His brain attempted to process it all but his calculations yielded only one conclusion that mattered.

"You don't recognize me?" He asked as- he wasn't quite sure who- took a knee before him. She lifted his chin with a finger so his eyes could meet hers.

For several long seconds, her endless eyes bore into his. She examined him with expert precision, but the Master had never felt more invisible.

His hearts dropped as she flatly stated, "No." and let his head to fall back into place. She stood up and stepped back, now far less interested than before.

The Master wanted to stand up, to make a big show, but he didn't know what this meant. This was something entirely new and completely uncharted. He found himself frozen still.

"You... you don't know who I am?" The Master found himself repeating. In seconds, he found himself chuckling and after a few more, he was laughing away.

He staggered back onto his feet, his laughter growing bigger and bolder with each passing moment. It helped him find his strength and enough energy to play this little game.

"Who the hell are you then?!" He asked, the woman towered over him even on level ground.

Her dark skin was illuminated gorgeously in the bright moonlight. Her brightly colored shirt peaked out at her collar and sleeves from her dark blue waistcoat and matching jacket. Her long hair was elegantly pulled back and her deep eyes glared over him- and the city- like she was a Goddess among mortals.

A Goddess who apparently pulled strangers down from rooftops without a second thought.

The Master swallowed hard and suddenly he knew definitively that this Was Indeed the Doctor. No one else could ever make him feel this way. He did his absolute best to let the feeling pass over him and shove it out of sight.

"Oh I think you know who I am," the Doctor replied, her voice sharp and uncaring, "You're a Time Lord after all."

This intrigued the Master- in addition to feeling like a knife to the chest. This version of the Doctor- whichever one it was- appeared to be as clever as ever but definitely didn't have all the pieces. He could work with this. He began to stroll around her, examining things from all angles.

"I suppose you're right. In a way," he considered, chuckling over again.

"I am and always WILL BE, your nearest and dearest friend," he took special notice to clearify, "but if you don't know that then we have a LOT to discuss."

The Doctor watched him from the corner of her eye as he circled her.

"Which one are you then?" The Master continued, his eyes narrowing, "The Doctor always labels her outfits- but I suppose I did miss a few between."

"The Doctor?" The woman asked, her face twisting in amusement and disbelief. Truth was, she had only just begun introducing herself as 'The Doctor' and was intrigued to hear someone so casually refer to her as such.

Still, she didn't want to trust too quickly-in case this was a trap laid our by the Time Lords.

For the second time, the Master could feel the knife twisting inside his chest. This one had felt different from the start. But if she wasn't the Doctor yet, then perhaps she was one of the lives wiped from the Matrix's existence.

He paused his pacing and stood before her for a moment. He shook his head slightly and turned away, the hurt and confusion in his eyes undoubtedly betraying him. It happened more than he would like it to with this latest incarnation of his.

"I'm sorry I don't know you. It must not have happened yet," the woman's voice softened from somewhere behind him. "If it helps, people call me Ruth."

The Master didn't like being pitied, and he quickly mistook her kindness for it. However, he quickly realized that this was not yet the Doctor, not yet his Doctor nor the child he had grown up with at the Academy. She had the same mind, but she was someone else. His head was spinning.

"Ruth." He tested out the word. It felt wrong on his tongue. His attention quickly snapped back to her, "Why Ruth?"

"I was designated as 'The Ruthless'," she explained coldly, her arms crossing and weight shifted back, "But that's none of your business."

"Ruthless!" The Master exclaimed. He paused his pacing once again and rushed up to her, beaming, "Yes! You must be one of the ones who worked for 'The Division'!"

"I'm the one who quit. You know of it?" Ruth questioned flatly, no trust in her eyes. Which was probably good, all things considered.

"My dear, I know all about you! Future and Past! The middle's a bit blurry, if I'm being honest," he teetered a hand back and forth, "but all in good time!"

Ruth raised an eyebrow while the Master half-danced with excitement. He stepped back and forth across the pavement, unable to stand still. His mind was buzzing with anticipation to know more.

"Then why haven't I met you? I probably shouldn't be talking to you if you're in my future," Ruth replied.

"Oh, oh my dear it's quite the long and complicated story," the Master beamed. "But let me assure you whatever you learn won't have any impact on your future."

He quickly realized that Ruth's eyes were tracing him, and she didn't seem to like what she saw. Not that it mattered: but he was doing his best to make a good first impression.

He looked down as his attire. After everything he'd been through recently, it was covered in a layer of dust and ash that had now turned muddy against the rain that had stopped some time ago.

"Actually, it would be quite interesting to hear what you think." He strolled past her and to the other end of the building, throwing his words over his shoulder, "You're future self isn't too happy with me at the moment."

"Is it the blond one?" Ruth asked curiously.

The Master chuckled,

"With yellow suspenders? Yes, that's her. Absolutely ridiculous," he already found himself reminiscing.

"I met her recently," Ruth finally decided to comply.

The Master briefly wondered if this meant she believed him.

"You did!" The Master grinned wildly, "I have to admit, she might be my new favorite."

"I have a feeling you find every new one your favorite," Ruth mocked him.

"Oooo," the Master replied without missing a beat, "maybe so. Are you looking to move up the list?" he added flirtatiously.

Ruth rolled her eyes and leaned an arm against the halfwall. However, a light smile still found its way to her face.

"What's your story?" Ruth asked nonchalantly. She acted calm but simultaneously exerted such unbridled confidence the Master wasn't really sure how to interpret it yet. He momentarily gave up on trying to understand her and focused on his own explanation,

"In summation, I showed her what the Timelords did to you, the way they TOOK you, USED you, the way they messed with your MIND. You still remember it I presume. You must be," he took a deep breath, "RIGHTFULLY furious."

Ruth's expression didn't betray her emotions the way the Master knew his own did. He knew the way his emotions seeped out through the cracks in his hearts, he knew it from the way his ears felt on fire and the tears swelled in his eyes. But this was the Doctor, this was a version who would never know his vulnerabilities, who he could force to see him for who he really was.

He let his head turn away to collect his thoughts.

"I found it all, by accident. They tried to hide it away, they hid even the person you are now. I exposed their wrongdoings-" his fist slammed against the center of his own chest, "I did that. It was the least I could do. To make you understand why I had to kill them all."

"That's why Gallifrey is decimated in the future?" Ruth noted.

"Yes." The Master let himself pause. It was so hard to focus on his own words when his heartbeats were blasting in his ears. The rush of admitting what he had done threatening to overwhelm him. He persisted,

"It was reduced to hellscape by the time war, but they deserved worse, so I gave it to them."

"We grew up together," he quickly added, although it suddenly felt like a lie. He reconsidered, "Or... so I thought. It's always been the two of us! Classmates, friends, rivals, it doesn't matter. ALWAYS equals. ALWAYS.

"Even when we fought, we always had each other," he remember wistfully. "But now she knows she's lived all this time before me. She's so much more and I'm..."

The tears were clouding his vision now, but he didn't let them fall. He refused to.

He spoke more slowly now, each word painfully precise,

"All that I am is somehow because of her. Everything I know, everything we learned, everything we became- was all possible because of her."

He slammed his fists down onto the concrete in anguish, his teeth gritting together in rage.

"I gave her the motive, the means, and the opportunity to kill us both. To PROVE that we're worth the same. She wouldn't. And... we're not.

"Even though I deserve it, even though I've worked so hard for it. I've matched her every move and I've won.

After everything that's happened we deserve a fitting finale! And when it was just a button away..."

He chuckled as the tears became unbearable. He blinked and they fall against the already soaked concrete. At least no one would notice them among the rainwater.

"I don't know what the Hell to do now. I'm... so tired."

Admitted the truth felt like a weight lifted from his body, bent over the ledge. His hair was still dripping with water, his body shaking in rage and fear and so many other emotions he couldn't understand if he tried.

"She thinks the humans need her, doesn't she," Ruth asked, without making any move to comfort the man who was very clearly falling apart before her.

"Of course she does," he spat, momentarily reinvigorated by the rage it fueled inside of him, "She always puts them first, before anyone else. Before me and before herself. No matter how many die, she always finds more."

He hissed out the words. He RESENTED her ability to do so. To interchangeably find more and more pets to love her, each ones leaving her in more pain than the last ones did.

He was quite deeply wallowing in his hatred when Ruth said just about the last thing he ever expected her to say,

"You really love her, don't you?"

The Master grew still, something rising within him and blinding him with its power.

Of course he didn't love her. Love was gentle and kind or whatever it was people always tried to tell him it was. Love was putting someone else first, but the Master knew his plans were selfish to the core.

His schemes were created solely for his own amusement, a form of entertainment to distract him from the persistent agony of life. They weren't formed nor carried out with love in any shape or form.

Even if suppose they were, love certainly wasn't something he knew how to identify. He had never given nor received it as memory served.

This passed through his mind in an instant.

"No. I despise her," his rough voice promised.

"I've offered her the universe itself, I've given her the power to erase any and all suffering, I've given her the truth and freed us from people who manipulated us for so long: and all she does is leave me to die when the moment's right."

The Doctor- Ruth- whoever- considered this.

The Master was in no rush for a reply. He didn't think there could possibly be an answer that would make sense anyhow.

"Has it ever occured to you, that maybe the Doctor already sees you as her equal?"

The Master scoffed.

"No really," Ruth continued, "You said that she always puts the humans first, even when it risks her own safety, yeah? That means she trusts you can make it through on your own. She knows you don't need her like the humans do."

"Of course I don't NEED her," he retorted angrily.

"But you want her respect."

"I want her attention. I want to make her understand. Now she never will because she's not the person I thought she was."

"Because her past conflicts with that?"

The Master glanced over the woman before letting his hand fall into his hand. She stood as a testament to what he already knew. This version- a version living long before the Doctor he had first met all those many years ago, long before the Time War, before the version he had just faced off against a mere day ago- was far more than he could ever be.

She was someone who saw a stranger standing on the ledge of a rooftop and offered him more kindness than he had been shown in a millenia. Far more kindness than he deserved.

He had been broken long ago, and yet after everything, the Doctor always prevailed.

"Of course it does. She said so herself, that she's more now than ever before. She doesn't need me."

"I think you're wrong."

There was a silent pause before yet again, the Master began to laugh.

"She certainly does not!"

"You said yourself that you gave her a truth she wouldn't have found on her own. And she appreciated it."

"I hoped it would break her. To know all the lies, just like it broke me."

"You still did that for her. You gave her everything you had to offer. I think she needs you to keep her balanced, probably more than either of you realize."

The Master wasn't sure this was the right answer, but since when did he care about right and wrong? He LIKED this answer. Maybe he could make it true.

"What makes you say that?" He asked skeptically, "You don't know what else I've done, what I'm capable of."

"I know because I could have benefitted from someone like you," Ruth admitted, and all at once she felt more like the Doctor than ever before. "I would have liked someone who looked at the world and saw his own version of it. Someone who decided what they wanted, took it, and still offered it to me. Good and evil isn't black and white. I believe there always has to be a balance and if I have to have some form of darkness in my life, it would be an honor to have someone as caring as you."

The Master didn't know how to respond to this. Her words felt like recognition for his role in their story.

It felt... genuine.

"Now if you'll excuse me, I still have someone to meet," Ruth quickly defused the moment.

The Master took the exit.

"And here I thought you just pulled jumpers from rooftops in your freetime," he sang in dark humor.

"Only ones I like," Ruth replied dryly.

She held out a confident hand.

"Until next time?"

The Master's mind wanted to drag him back into the dark, drag him back to the moment he had offered his hand to the Doctor and she had told him 'Never'. But he didn't.

Even further back, he considered the last moment the Doctor had extended a hand to him. Not long before he had become this form. And he had refused.

But this could be different, he decided, taking her hand with his own.

Once again, he knew something the Doctor did not.

He knew that the Doctor needed him.

"I'll try not to disappoint," he beamed.

She returned it with a smirk and a breath that must've been a chuckle.

She left him alone to his own devices and he looked out at the sky, where the moonlight was now cutting through the dispersing clouds.

He had work to do, and he planned to do it his own way.

-

The Doctor had been in the prison for five months now, as calculated by the position of the stars out her cell window. She had nothing to occupy herself with apart from the things she had brought with her- and the distractions she could think of had run out months ago.

All that was left was to confront her reality. To think about all the things the Master had shown her about herself and yet she couldn't remember. Slowly, gradually, she was making peace with it. Secretly, she even took great relief in knowing that the time lords were no longer around to do those things to her ever again.

She shouldn't take solace in it, but seeing that childhood version of herself so terrified stirred up emotions she hadn't realized she had. Knowing that the Time Lords could never put someone through that trauma again made her feel incomprehensibly safe.

It paved the way for her to see how the Master's twisted mind had correlated Gallifrey's actions to its destruction. It wasn't morally right, but she was beginning to understand it.

Or maybe she had just been trapped in her own head for too long.

It was five months and 8 days in that she awoke to the sound of yelling from the halls. She heard guards crashing down and other prisoners cheering on the fighting. She tried to ignore it. She knew she deserved far worse than a jail cell and 3 meals a day, but the noise of death truly plunged her into a personal Hell. Her already vulnerable mind became filled with its associated memories and she had no interest in reliving them.

She rolled over and did her best to block out the noise.

"Pay attention!" A voice broke through the chaos as if she had heard it with her own ears.

"You have more important things to do than lay there and wallow. Do that on your own time."

"Master?" She asked, sitting up and looking around.

"Who else would it be?" his voice snapped before returning to its annoyed tone, "Now I've sent in one of your pets to retrieve you. I was going to let you suffer longer, but a Dalek ship is on their way. Just consider this a gift, until next time."

"Wait-" the Doctor didn't have time to say. The Master was gone from her mind in a second.

In the blink of an eye, someone was opening her cell.

"Doctor?"

"Jack?! How did you know I was here?" She grinned, sprinting towards him and leaping into his arms.

He caught her, his arms clinging tightly around her and a warm chuckle of effort escaping his lips.

"Met a friend of yours in a bar? It's a long story. As much as I'd love to do this right now, raincheck?" Jack explained.

The Doctor quickly nodded and grabbed his hand,

"Raincheck."

With the alarms blaring and lights flashing they bolted off to Jack's ship and to the safety of space.

  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> I don't LOVE the way this turned out but I liked the idea and I'm trying to get better at sharing my writing.  
> I'm thinking about expanding on this but idk. Any suggestions?  
> Anyways, if you actually read this thank you so much I really appreciate your time :)


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